Year 9 Sisters - A Mel, Tab, Mewla & Cathy story

Chapter One


  The mock SAT exams had come and gone. We had all done pretty well, getting mostly B's, the odd C, and a few A's in things in which we greatly excelled. The only problem had been Science - the whole class had got bad marks for Physics and Chemistry. All the teachers were now pushing us to work harder and pull up our grades for the real thing, which were set to be held in March. Cathy was sticking by her theory that because she had got an A in Geography, there was no way she could pull her grade up any more and thus didn't have to bother to work in Geography any more, thus giving her a lot more time to annoy Mrs Fisher. We had all laughed at this, and Cathy had then assured us she was only joking.
  "Ooh - we've got the new kitten starting today." Cathy said, as we all walked to school one Friday morning in December.
  "Have we?" Tab said, surprised.
  "Oh, you weren't in tutor when Miss Mewola told us, were you." I remembered. "You were off getting brownie points from Mr Mewan."
  "Yeah, yeah." Tab tried to laugh it off, but we had been teasing her about this for two days now. Tab had happened to have handed in the best Art project of the whole class, and because of this, it had been shown to our Head of Year, and Tab had been called to his office two days ago at afternoon registration to be told how well she had done.
  "Well I wouldn't mind going to see Mr Mewan." Cathy grinned. "He's gorgeous!"
  We all laughed.`
  By the time we got into school, it had started snowing. We were glad to get in, in the warm corridors.
  "Tab, come to the tuck shop with me!" Cathy said. "If I don't get a doughnut before class I'll fade away!"
  "Tab can't, she'll be off to see Mr Mewan again to be reminded of how fantastic her Art work is." Mewla joked. Tab tried to punch her but Mewla dodged away, laughing.
  Tab and Cathy linked arms and went off down the corridor together. Mewla and I set off in the other direction to our tutor room. Most of the others were there, including Miss Mewola, who was sat at her desk arranging a sheaf of papers.
  "Morning girls." she said. "Sit down quickly because I've got some important things to tell you before you go off to Physics. Now - who's still not here?"
  "Well Cathy and Tab have just gone to the tuck shop." I said. "And it looks like all the boys must be down on the field."
  "Why doesn't that surprise me." smiled Miss Mewola. "What I fail to understand is why they seem to love playing football in the snow and the rain too."
  "Well they don't care if their hair gets wet, like we do." Tibbicca said, running a hand down her long, silky blonde hair.
  As we spoke, there came a clumping of many shoes up the corridor.
  "Talk of the devils." Purla said.
  The boys came in noisily, Mewfal bouncing the football on the floor and Tom giving Cathy a piggyback, as they had evidently met up on the way back from the tuck shop. Tab followed, laughing. As soon as the boys saw that Miss Mewola was in already, they stopped being quite so rowdy and Mewfal stopped bouncing the ball. We all laughed.
  "I shall have to start getting here earlier more often." smiled Miss Mewola.
  The boys all sat down and the class subsided.
  Miss Mewola called the register, then picked up all her papers.
  "Right then, I've got a few things to say." she said. "First off, we have our new girl joining us today; I'll send someone to fetch her in a moment - she's in the secretary's office. Second, there is the rather important matter of your mock Science SATs."
  "Or lack of them." Cathy grinned.
  "Well it will be a lack if you don't all pull up your grades." Miss Mewola said. "I can't understand why you all got such bad grades. Do any of you ever actually do any work in Sciences?"
  "Tibleau does, Miss." laughed Purla. Tibleau grinned. Ever since Year 7 she has been affectionately known as the class swot, but we all love her for it and she is as much a part of the group as the rest of us.
  "Right, well, Mr Mewan and I and your Science teachers have all decided that something must be done. So, starting from next week, you will miss some of your other lessons and have more intensive Chemistry and Physics lessons for a week, and we'll see how you're doing then. We may extend it to two weeks if you don't improve."
  "And if it looks like there's no hope in hell they'll just give up and send us home." Cathy grinned, and everyone laughed.
  "We'll be written off as lost causes." Purla said.
  "So as of next Monday, you will have different timetables for a while." Miss Mewola said. "I'll get those made up over the weekend. You'll be spending most of your days in the labs."
  "Can we really afford to give up other lessons?" Tibbicca asked.
  "Well, after long talks, we've decided that yes, you can." Miss Mewola said. "You all did very well at most of your other subjects, so a couple of weeks away from those won't do you any harm. And we can always give you extra homework for those lessons, can't we?"
  There was a general groan round the class and Miss Mewola laughed.
  "No, you'll have your work cut out with your Sciences, I think." she said. "Anyway - that's that for now. Now - who wants to go and fetch our new girl from the secretary's office? She'll be wondering what has happened."
  Purbecca offered, so the rest of us just sat back and chatted while she went off to fetch the new girl. Five minutes later, Purbecca came back, and we all looked in interest to see who was with her. The kitten went over to stand by Miss Mewola. She looked shy.
  "Everyone, this is Purlibya Panayotis." Miss Mewola said. Purlibya smiled round at us. She was obviously Greek; her name and lovely dark skin gave that away. She had long, very thick dark hair and large dark eyes that looked very nervous. But she was very pretty when she smiled.
  "Hello." she said. I think we all took to her at once, because everyone said hello, and she was invited to go and sit with Purbecca and Alimew right away. Cathy suddenly snorted with laughter, stifled a giggle, and elbowed me.
  "Look at Mewliam." she said quietly. I looked. He was staring almost openmouthed at Purlibya as if he had never seen a pretty girl before. I laughed.
  Miss Mewola explained to Purlibya that Alimew and Purbecca would show her round and 'look after her' to begin with, and she asked Purbecca if she could take Purlibya up to see Mr Mewan and to get a timetable at some point. Purbecca said that she would. Miss Mewola then gave us a few minutes to say hi and introduce ourselves before she told us to go off to Physics.
  "Look keen and get there early for once." she said. "Or Mr Hillmew will think you don't give a toss about Physics. And no, Cathy - don't say that you don't."
  Cathy, who had opened her mouth to speak, looked most indignant and shut her mouth again. We giggled.
  "I'll see you after lunch." Miss Mewola gathered up her things and pulled her coat on. "Oh, and welcome, Purlibya. Goodness knows what you'll think of this lot, but good luck."
  Purlibya smiled prettily.

***

  Mr Hillmew wasn't even in the Physics lab when we got there. Cathy grinned wickedly when she saw the empty classroom.
  "Come on - let's all sit down and get our books out and be all studious for when he gets here." she said. So we all quickly sat down at our benches and got out all our books and papers.
  "Sssh - here he is!" hissed Cathy. When Mr Hillmew came in he actually did a double-take. He came in, glanced at the benches, not expecting any of us to be there, then looked again and goggled at us all, as he saw us all, boys as well, sat in silence with our books out. Cathy and Purla, who had sat together (and are a terrible combination for causing havoc), had ridiculous manic grins on their faces, and as soon as Mr Hillmew caught sight of us all they exploded into laughter, which set the rest of us off too.
  "Well, good morning, class." he said. "Anyone would think you were trying to improve your grades or something." his eyes twinkled. He then noticed Purlibya sat with Purbecca and Alimew. "Ah - a new face, I see."
  "This is Purlibya." Purbecca said.
  "Hi, Sir." Purlibya smiled.
  Cathy was standing up slightly with her feet on the leg bar of her stool, peeping past Tab and I to see if Mewliam was staring at Purlibya again. He was.
  "Need a pair of binoculars there, Cath?" Tab grinned. Cathy pulled a face and sat back down on her stool.
  "Right - I dare say you've been told about the schedule for next week?" Mr Hillmew said. "You'll be dividing your time between myself and Mrs Mewlham."
  One of the boys muttered "God help us" and everyone giggled.
  "This has never been done before." Mr Hillmew said. "But we really must do something about those terrible grades you all got."
  "Would it be easier to just drop Physics and Chemistry?" suggested Tibbicca, grinning.
  Mr Hillmew smiled. "No."
  That lesson was fairly normal; we just sat with textbooks out and copied down some notes and diagrams into our books. Mr Hillmew told us that it would be useful to have it jotted down for next week's experiments.
  After Physics, we went off to RE. RE is always fun because most of the class find it boring and the boys usually find some way of winding up Miss Mewlack, who, I might add, falls for their mickey-taking every time. There is always a rush for the tables by the radiators in the chilly weather. They boys aren't really bothered, but most of us girls try to hurry. At the moment we are studying Buddhism. RE lessons are always fairly relaxed because it isn't exactly a taxing subject, and some of it is actually quite interesting when you get down to it.
  It was so cold in the RE room (it's one of the huts outside) that we all kept our coats on when we sat down, and Miss Mewlack had to tell us to take them off.
  "I don't care if you're all cold, I can't teach you if you all look as if you're ready to leave." she said, as Mewlarka and Purbelle grumbled. "The radiators will soon warm us all up."
  After that, Tom and Mewfal, of course, proceeded to wind up Miss Mewlack by chattering their teeth very loudly while she was trying to explain the finer points of Buddhism.
  "Tom and Mewfal, if you two don't stop that I will send you outside, and then you'll have a real reason for your teeth to chatter." she said in an exasperated tone. Tom and Mewfal duly shut up.
  The rest of the lesson went smoothly, finishing off with the announcement of doom that we had to do an essay on what we had learnt in the last three or four lessons.
  "God - I can't even remember what we learnt today, let alone four lessons ago!" Cathy grinned, as we left the hut.
  A fine mist of snow was falling as we crossed the main walkway.
  "We're going to the tuck shop - you coming?" called Tibbicca.
  "Yeah - wait for us!" Tab called, and the four of us hurried to catch up with Tibbicca, Purla and Tibleau. The main building was lovely and warm, and the hall was even warmer because of all the food. We had PE after break, so we always get some doughnuts at break so we don't have to do PE with rumbling stomachs. We each bought two chocolate-filled doughnuts and sat down in the hall to eat them. Some of the boys came to sit with us and we had a laugh.
  "Oh well, I suppose we'd better get going to PE." Cathy said, in such an unenthusiastic voice that we all laughed. "I hate gym with a vengeance."
  I think we all do. There's nothing worse on a freezing day than having to strip off and change into tiny gym things and huddle up in the freezing gym that smells of rubber mats and old shoes.  We wandered up through the snow, which was falling more heavily now. The changing room block was at the back of the gym, and as we neared the door, Cathy suddenly stopped. We could hear raised voices.
  "Just shut up!"
  "Why? What has got into you today?"
  "What business is it of yours? Just shut your face and leave me alone, Purbelle! I hate you!"
  We all hurried up to the door and went in. We were just in time to see Mewlarka storming out of the changing rooms through to the gym, her long black hair flying. Purbelle was stood by a bench, looking most puzzled and upset.
  "What the hell's going on?" asked Cathy, putting down her bags in amazement.
  "I'm not really sure." Purbelle said. "She seemed funny over break, and got more and more sulky, then when we got here to change she just started snapping at me and then started shouting! She said she hates me!"
  "Yeah, we heard her!" Cathy said. "Weird girl! What's made her like that, I wonder?"
  "Search me." Purbelle said, sitting down on the bench and pulling her gym things out of her bag. "It's weird."
  Purbelle didn't really say anything more while we got changed. Cathy was changing into tracksuit trousers rather than her gym skirt, as she had spent the last week or so complaining about how cold she was in the gym in her tiny gym skirt. Ms Hapmew came breezing in just then and through to the gym.
  "Cathy, no tracksuit trousers please, put your gym skirt on!" she called as she went through. Cathy pulled a face after her and Purla squealed with laughter.
  With Cathy grumbling about her freezing legs, we all trooped through to the gym. Most of the boys were in there already and Mewlarka was sat on a pile of rubber gym mats in the corner. She didn't look at any of us.
  Mewliam and Mewlip came through from the boys' changing rooms and Ms Hapmew told us all to sit down.
  "Mewlarka, come and join the rest of the class, please!" called Ms Hapmew.
  Mewlarka got sulkily down from the pile of mats and came over to the rest of us, where she sat down as far away from us all as she could get without being told off. I think Ms Hapmew sensed that there was something wrong but she didn't ask what it was. I think she thought it was probably a silly girl argument that would blow over. And I think Purbelle hoped the same.


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